Saul Alinsky remains stuck in the craw of right wing demonology. Like something that can’t be digested or expelled. He remains lodged there, hard edged and multifaceted, too tough to handle. The latest testimony to Alinsky’s enduring status as an indigestible persona comes from the headline boomlet offered up by a former New York City mayor, Rudy Giuliani. Willing to probe his subterranean world for public benefit, Giuliani disputes President Obama’s big love for the USA and for Rudy himself. In the course of this internal excursion he invokes none other than The Man himself. He called Saul. Or rather recalled Saul.

“Saul Alinsky,” he said, lying through his gritty teeth, “believed in basically the peaceful overthrow of the United States government…” So there he is - Saul Alinsky - popping out from a story of unrequited love as told by a man in need.

What are we to make of this?

We can only speculate along with the good former mayor about who really loves who and why. What was Rudy exposed to early in his childhood that predisposed him to fabricate boogeymen? What psychic damage bound him for aspirational disappointment? Why now in the twilight remnant of a political career return Saul Alinsky to center stage in a right wing meme projectile?